The dead were housed in deep catacomb-like caves behind the mansion,
lying all night in stone coffins, and coming forth in daily resurrection
to do the tasks ordained by the masters.

- Clark Ashton Smith
"Necromancy in Naat"

Strange and Deadly Minions
I have compared the lich to
a general who commands
his forces from the rear
lines. Continuing the
analogy, mindless undead
are the foot soldiers and intelligent
undead are the lieutenants. In this
chapter, I will discuss beings that
comparable to the general's majors,
colonels, and aides-de-camp. These are
undead peculiar to the legions of the
lich because they are the products of
the powerful black magic that only a
licg can wield.

Specifically, I am referring to the
magically endowed undead creature,
which I have named the quasimancer,
to the fallen wizard, which I have called
the vassalich; and to the abominable
lich familiar. These are servants that, to
a small degree, mimic their master's
deadly combination of magic use and
undead status. Their special powers
raise them above the ranks of common
minions, yet their superiority is little
cause for rejoicing, even if they possess
the free will to do so. They are pitiable
creatures, miserable wretches who
serve an evil master, battle fodder to an
amoral commander who knows no
shortage of replacement troops.

The extent to which these monsters
pose a threat is variable. Taken by
themselves, they offer a mildly
dangerous combat adversary, certainly
nothing beyond the skills of most
seasoned adventurers. Yet each of them
serves the lich in a special capacity that
greatly multiplies the master's
effectiveness, performing functions that
hitherto required the presence of the lich
itself. With the emergence of these creatures, the lich can remain safely out
of harm's reach and thus create even
more complex and wicked schemes. To
the lich hunter, these minions represent
yet another ring of defense to penetrate
and another depletion of precious
strength and magic.

Quasimancers

The lich's ability to manipulate the
dead comes so naturally that it should
be no surprise if the lich were to
improve upon the method. The powers
of a lich are limited only by the scope
of its imagination, intelligence, and
research. In other words, the lich only
need practice more powerful sorcery
in order to create more powerful
undead, and garnering more potent
magic is about as natural an act as a
lich can manage.

I wish that I had come to this
conclusion myself - it seems so
obvious - but it was my prized scout
Markil who put me on to it during our
hunt of the lich called the Bloody Hand.

"First a pack of zombies comes pilin'
through the hedges-no problem; we
pound 'em into dust. Then some ghouls
come draggin' behind-pretty smelly,
but again no big issue; we hold our
breath, and we burn 'em down. 'Course
they all have the red-eye, but we know
how deal with that, thanks to you, Van
Richten. I, myself, like to look a stiff in
the breadbox when I take it out.

"Then what I think is another ghoul
comes into view andjust stands there,
lookin' at us. I finish off my last stiff and
head for it, when I hear it whisperin'
and see it wavin' its hands at me. Well, I never saw any stiff weaker than a
vampire throw a spell, but I know what
I'm lookin' at, so I yell 'duck' and then do the same. It's a damn. good thing too,
Doc. Sure enough, the stiff dumps a ball
o'fire into the party!

"To make a long story short, we
dusted the magic cadaver, then headed
back here to tell you what happened. "

It was not long before we encountered
more of the Bloody Hand's special
minions, and I was given the opportunity
to observe them myself. They introduced
a new complication to our hunt, forcing
us to change our combat strategy,
advance even more cautiously, and rest
even more often. Meanwhile, the Bloody
Hand was absent from the war, taking
advantage of our delays to advance its
agenda elsewhere.

Despite those setbacks, I made good
use of the spare time and studied these
magic-using undead minions with an
educated eye. Based on my
observations, and the collective opinion
of a dozen scholars, I have valuable
information to impart to the reader
regarding the creatures I call
quasimancers.

Let us begin with two basic
prerequisites. First, the use of wizard
magic apparently requires some force
of will. It is not enough to simply
comprehend the workings of a spell; one must have the determination to
drive magical forces to a desired end.
Therefore, a candidate for quasimancer must retain at least part of its former life essence - its personality, if you
will - in order to use magic. Second, the
casting of magic almost always
demands the use of the hands and other
body parts in order to shape the spell,
Therefore, a quasimancer must have a
physical body, possessed of some
dexterity.

Mummies, vampires, and liches
satisfy both prerequisites, but
mummies and vampires are difficult to
control, even for a lich. (I do not
believe it is possible for one lich to
control another.) Also, both vampires
and liches are already capable of
wielding magic, so endowing them with
spell abilities would be redundant.

I conclude, then, that the lich raises a
special form of wight to serve as a
quasimancer. The minion retains a
small part of its former identity, and a
freshly animated wight still maintains a
viable physique for spellcasting.
Furthermore, such a creature is subject
to the same absolute control exerted by
the lich upon its lesser cousins, yet its
orders from the "general" would include
the use of offensive magic. To support
my hypothesis, I have observed that
quasimancers exhibit hand-to-hand
combat techniques and other innate
abilities common to the wight.

Let me caution the reader not to
take this text too literally. The ghast
also satisfies the prerequisites for a
quasimancer. Perhaps the lich can
endow even the lowly skeleton with the
ability to cast magic. Then again,
perhaps such magic is not possible.
Whatever the case, we cannot rest
upon absolutes, for liches make new
breakthroughs in spell research even
as I write this guide, and even as you
read it.

A quasimancer can command a
company of skeletons and zombies,
send them into a fray, then saturate the
area with highly destructive magic,
obliterating its own troops and even
itself. Indeed, one should not expect a
quasimancer to stand aloof from the
battle or the rest of the undead as a
mage would, for it carries no
expectations of survival into battle. The monster has no concerns for its
underlings or for itself, so it makes an
ideal leader for a suicidal mission. And,
because it outwardly appears to be no
more than a common ghoul or wight, its
actions may not always be noted or
anticipated until too late, so it is all the
more deadly.

I have no positive suppositions to
contribute to this matter, except
perhaps that the knowledge of the quasimancer's existence should be
enough to keep the hunter of undead
monsters on constant guard. If these
minions encourage the reader to be
ever vigilant, ever ready to face the
unexpected, then that is the only good
they will ever do for us.

As always, the Dungeon Master is
free to vary the origins and powers of
the quasimancer. Some guidelines
follow.

The quasimancer is specially
raised by the lich, then magically
endowed (see the spells create
minion and confer in the Dungeon
Master Appendix later in this
volume). After it is successfully
raised, it is allowed a saving throw to
avoid being automatically lich-controlled, as are other undead of
less than half the lich's Hit Dice (see
Chapter Two). This saving throw is
allowed because of the artificially
enhanced Intelligence granted during
the creation of the quasimancer. If
the roll succeeds and the minion is
able to escape the lich, it can be a
worthy opponent of the heroes for as
long as the create minion spell lasts.
(A clever creature might attempt to
get a permanency spell cast upon
itself, thus negating the expiration of
the spell.) At the Dungeon Master's
option, the quasimancer may reroll
the saving throw to avoid the lich's
control, once per week or more.

A quasimancer enjoys the
statistics and abilities of its common
cousin (as per the Monstrous Manual
tome), with additional qualities from
being the minion of a lich. It makes
all saving throws at the level of the
lich that controls it; it is immune to
enfeeblement, polymorph, electricity,
insanity, charm, sleep, cold, and
death spells; and, it exudes a fear
aura over a 5-foot radius, requiring a
save vs. spell or else a victim must
flee for 2d4 rounds.

Vassaliches

"It was the most terrible thing I have
ever seen, Dolf! No! Not the most
terrible - the dreams it put into my head
when I could no longer stay awake...
when I put my wife's hand into a - No! I didn't do that! I didn't do that! Don't
look at me!"

"It was the lich that put those
thoughts in your head, Harmon. Let
them go, they are not yours!" I cajoled
him, realizing that his reason would not
remain much longer. "Tell me about the
minions. You were talking about the
lich's minions, remember?"

"Yes, yes! It was horrid, horrid! Not
just dead things - living things too. Men!
A man became a lich before my eyes!
He swallowed a stone - a diamond or
something, I don't know. Then the lich
slit its rotted wrist open with its own
fingernail and blood - no, not blood
ooze, gray ooze ran from the black hole!
And the man drank it! He drank the
lich's blood! He drank it, Dolf! And he
fell down and screamed. And he
changed. He shriveled. He died! He lay
there, dead, and -"

"And what, Harmon?"

"He got up and spit the stone into the
lich's hand. Then he was a lich, too".

- From the private journal of Dr. Van Richten

I have never met a creature like the
one Dr. Ruscheider described on that
evening when he came to me like a
crazed animal beneath the full moon,
but I have little doubt that it exists. So
much evil is around us, and so many
people are exposed to temptations
proffered by agents of that evil. It is sadly simple to conclude that a wizard
of questionable values might strike a
pact with a lich and become immortal,
albeit undead. What mage does not
crave the arcane secrets of the
universe? What wizard would not
consider the advantages of unlimited
time to learn new magic? Who among
any of us does not wish to live
forever?

These sentiments are the genesis of
the vassalich: a wizard who undergoes
the transformation to lichdom under
the sponsorship of a full lich, thus
becoming an undead magic-user long
before he could accomplish the feat
himself. Such a foolish mage is a free-willed individual who is yet a slave. He
is capable of independent thought,
abstract strategy, self-conducted
research, and intellectual processes
available to a living human, but he has
committed himself to eternal bondage
to a master who inevitably will use him
as nothing more than another means
to its own ends.

As people who are more intelligent
than the average, mages should know
the consequences of entering into such a
relationship, or so I would assume. This
may well be why I have never met a
vassalich; it is extremely uncommon.
Even so, I have shared Harmon
Ruscheider's remarks with a few
scholarly wizards, and I have made the
following speculations upon the nature of
the vassalich.

A vassalich ideally much rarely
than a lich; such a slave is bound to
be more than a handful, and it is sure
to draw undut attention as well -
something few liches desire. If a
Dungeon Masters wishes to roleplay
the creation, of a vassalich, a number
of conditions can be created to carry
off a successful transformation.
Heroes who prevent these conditions
from occurring also prevent vassalich
creation.

For example, the wizard might
have to fall at least two powers checks
before the transformation will work.
Perhaps the phylactery must be a
gem of not less than 10,000 gp value
which the lich can wear ornarnentally
or keep with the rest of its treasure
Perhaps the new vassalich must rest
after the conversion, like its master,
but foe 10 full days.

The transformation itself might
consist ofJoint spellcasting by the
sponsor and aspirant. Perhaps the
casts enchant an item on the
phylactery while the wizard drinks
prepared potion: (see Chapter One)
then the wizard casts magic jar before
he dies. Next, the lich casts
reincarnation on the wizard's boby,
and the vassalich is created.

The vassalich's phylactery would
likely not be nearly as magical as that
of the lich. It might be destroyed
merely by inflicting 25 points of
damage upon it using any nonemagical
weapon. (A saving throw vs. crushing
blow might apply.)

Necrology

I would guess that nearly all
vassaliches were once living students
of the wizards' college of Necrology.
A preoccupation with or sheer
ambivaience about death would
certainly render the prospect of
becoming undead less daunting.
Hence, it is expected that a vassalich
can wield death magic as a specialist
of the dark school of Necromancy.

A vassalich most likely undergoes a
process similar to his master's when he becomes undead. He might drink a
poisonous potion or partake of the lich's
body fluid as Ruscheider suggested, but
his soul then occupies a phylactery.
Ruscheider's story also implied that the
phylactery is given over to the lich, who
presumably keeps it as the perfect
instrument of leverage over its new
minion. The lich gains an absolutely
loyal servant in complete control of its
sophisticated mental faculties. As long
as the phylactery remains in the lich's
possession, the vassalich must do its
sponsor's bidding.

Quick-thinking hunters will realize
that he who holds the phylactery of a
lich, be it a vassal or otherwise, controls
the lich! Furthermore, the phylactery of
a vassalich may not be subject to the
same security standards as the
master's. The captured phylactery of a
vassalich may be one of the deadliest weapons that a lich hunter could ever
hope to wield.

A vassalich is reincarnated, as a
monster with HD equal to half (round
down) its former experience level, but
retains its former spellcasting
abilities. It gains 1 HD every 10 years,
equal to two experience levels in spellcasting abilities. It becomes a full
lich upon reaching 11 HD. However, it
must first gain control of its
phylactery, then follow all normal
procedures for becoming a lich.

A vassalich can be hit by
nonmagical weapons, but it remains
immune to charm, sleep,
efeeblement, polymorph, cold,
electricity, insanity, and death spells.
It is turned as a lich. It can make the
gaze attack that all lich minions
enjoy (see Chapter Six), and it also
exude a fear aura with a 5-foot
radius (save vs. spell, or flee for 2d4
rounds). Finally, it possesses a chill
touch for 1d4 points of damage
save vs. paralyzation, or behave as
slowed for 1d10 rounds). It is
suggested that heroes who have
never seen a vassalich be required to
make a horror check upon the first
such encounter, unless they have
had at least two previous encounters
with an actual lich.

Powers

A wizard who becomes a vassalich
probably gains its master's black aura
to some extent, and it probably shares
the lich's resistance to holy symbols
and certain types of magic, but it surely
lacks its master's experience and level
of magical power. I suspect that a
vassalich retains the same spellcasting
ability as it had in life. If there is any
such gain upon transformation, then it
is probably paid for with the loss of
endurance, mobility, or strength.

Psychology

The mind of a vassalich is sure to be
an incredibly complex thing. It retains
its memories and force of personality
after its transformation, which must
mean that it continues to harbor within
its breast the same intense ambition
that drove it to pursue vassalichdom in
the first place. How it must grate upon
it to become the absolute slave of
another! No doubt, a candidate for
transformation is absolutely loyal to the
sponsor lich while courting immortality,
but once the deed is done, how long is
it before the intelligent minion comes to
resent the bond of slavery?

This line of reasoning leads me to two
conjectures about the "lesser lich". First, a would-be vassalich might be more
dangerous to our world while he is still a
mortal, for he can act as a spy and thief
for the monster whom he wishes to
please. While he remains a living man,
he is capable of insidious and far-reaching damage, for who would guess
at the ghastly station to which he
aspires, and realize that he is already a
minions of a lich? Second, he may be
more dangerous to the lich when he is
no longer mortal, for such an ambitious
creature is sure to plot against the one
who holds its phylactery. After the
transformation, egotism and ambition, to
say nothing of basically evil character,
quite likely estranges the vassalich from
its master. As long as the lich has its
very life essence in its keeping, a
vassalich's existence hangs upon the
whim of an evil persona. I think that I can safely say that such an arrangement
cannot be tolerable for long.

While I have little advice to offer
regarding living spies, I think that it
may be possible for a clever hunter to
poison the relationship between the
lich and its vassal undead. The trick is
to establish an alliance with the
vassalich without the lich's knowledge.
The vassal is sure to be nervous about
such an arrangement - after all, its
master will crush its phylactery at the
first hint of rebellion. However, there is
more than enough incentive to turn against the lich, and that is one fact
upon which a lich hunter may almost
certainly depend.

Many interesting adventure
scenarios are possible with the
inclusion of a vassalich. It may serve
as a nemesis to heroes who simply are
not strong enough to deal with a true
lich; in such cases, the lich may be
busy in another realm while the
vassalich runs the lair or initiates
plots of its own. A vassalich can be
powerful, but never as much so as a
true lich.

Another adventure possibility lies in
the attempted mental and emotional
seduction of a player's mage by a lich.
Of course, it is expected that the
heroic mage will respond to the
temptation only as a way to infiltrate
the lich's defenses. If roleplayed well, the game of cat-and-mouse could be
very exciting.

A player's hero may actually find
himself forced by the lich, physically,
magically, or otherwise, to undergo the transformation process as a result
of roleplaying. In this case, he
becomes a nonplayer character until
his companions can destroy the
vassalich's body, gain control of the
lesser phylactery, ctone the player's
wizard (use of other bodies, alive or
dead, may call for a powers check,
depending on the circumstances), and
cast magic jar, then raise dead or
resurrection (apply all saving throws),
A wish may be substituted for
either spell.

Lich Familiars

There is but one priest of nature among
the hunters of undead with whom I have traveled: Alannthir the half-breed
elf. Until I met him, I believed that
lawful priests of goodness were the
stoutest foes of the walking dead. but
this druid proved me wrong.
Alannthir's utter condemnation of the
unnatural state of living death was
matched only by the ferocity he
exhibited when he met one of them
face to face. He wielded a magical
scimitar that blazed like the sun in the
faces of the undead, but often he
actually cast it aside to tear skeletons
literally limb from limb, reducing them
to piles of bone with his rough, bare
hands! Here, I thought, was the
ultimate ally to my cause.

Finally, we met the lich Redfist's
familiar - once a red-tailed hawk, but
now a molting, rotted, batlike thing
with a scream like an infuriated
banshee. We first encountered it in the
company of its master and were forced
to flee for our lives, but Alannthir was
choked with horror at the sight of the undead hawk, and he had to be
dragged screaming from the battlefield.
He became hopelessly obsessed with
the bird - his eyes never left the
heavens, and he muttered through
every waking hour, complaining, "We
must move quickly, quickly!"

When we had finally laid our
deliberate plans for approaching the
lich, Alannthir agreed to the strategy.
Nevertheless, while we were still
many miles from the suspected
location of the lair, he espied the
familiar circling high above, shifted his
shape to that of a small bird before my
very eyes, and darted into the sky
before we could stop him! The undead
hawk, apparently senseless of its
master's will at the time, gave itself
over to predatory instincts and gave
Alannthir chase.

The druid could not hope to elude
the hawk's talons, but he lured it into
our midst before it snatched him in
midair and they both tumbled to the
ground in a death struggle. We
immediately seized the opportunity and
pounced upon the unnatural monster,
even as if snapped Alannthir's neck.
With similar speed, we released the
creature from its gruesome existence,
driving a silver dagger through its
leathery breast.

It seemed that Alannthir breathed a
sigh ofjoy as he regained his humanoid
form and died, but it was drowned by a
long, hideous shriek from Redflst, which
echoed across the realm.

- From the private journal of Dr. Van Richten

Insofar as a lich is a wizard, it is
reasonable that a lich might have a
familiar. Such a creature not only
conveys special powers upon the lich,
but it provides perhaps the only faithful
company that a lich will tolerate. The
relationship between a mage and his
familiar is quite intimate, but the lich's
familiar may be the only friend it has in
the entire universe.

On the other hand, the familiar of a must certainly be or become an evil thing. It may be that a lich familiar
endures an antagonistic tie to its
master and must be ruled with an iron
fist. Perhaps this creature rightly hates
its master, even more so because it
cannot survive without the lich. This
might explain why Redfist's familiar
chased Alannthir, putting both itself and
its master at risk. I do not mean to
suggest a familiar may be turned
against the lich in the same manner as
a vassalich. Rather, I think that some
familiars may abandon their primary
directives at crucial moments, heeding
more basic instincts.

A wizard who has a familiar is faced
with a dilemma when he contemplates
lichdom: Perhaps his death may
simply dissolve the bond between
himself and his familiar, but it is quite
possible that the separation adversely
affects the mage. If upon the change
he suffers a shock like that which
mages experience upon the death of a
familiar, the result could be absolute
death. Therefore, I am inclined to
believe that a lich will insist on taking
its familiar into unlife with it, and that
the familiar's life essence resides in
the phylactery with its master.

However, I doubt that unliving
immortality is acceptable to a natural
creature, even if it is inextricably
bound to a wizard. I would not be
surprised if such a familiar actually
rebelled in the face of this
predicament. I do not wonder at Alannthir's rage over Redfist's hawk; I'm sure the poor beast was thoroughly
miserable.

As an aside, I see no reason why a
lich could not call a familiar after its
transformation, but I seriously doubt
that any natural animal would answer
its summons. Rather, the familiar of a
lich would most likely be an undead
thing itself.

A wizard can take its familiar with
it into lichdom by forcing it to drink
the potion of transformation. After
doing so, the familiar makes a System
Shock roil at same level as the
wizard. If it fails, the familiar dies and
the lich must make a second System
Shock roll. If that roll fails, the lich
dies irrevocably, just as if he had
failed his first roll. If the roll succeeds,
the lich still loses 1 point of
Constitution permanently, and it must
rest two full weeks before memorizing
spells or conducting any strenuous
activity.

A lich familiar's spirit resides in the
phylactery with the lich's. Therefore, it
cannot be completely destroyed until
the phylactery is destroyed, as with
the lich.

For a lich-summoned familiar, the
Dungeon Master can consult the
Monstrous Manual tome and choose a
familiar appropriate to the campaign.
A familiar may also be selected from
the three (now out of print) Ravenloft
Monstrous Compendium appendices
or other sources. The familiar could
easily be a monster whose power falls
outside the normal bounds permitted
to familiars, as the nonplayer villains
may have to fight against powerful
groups of heroes. The Dungeon
Master may declare that a lich can
create an undead version of virtually
any living monster by casting raise
dead upon the expired monster of its
choice, then binding it by casting find
familiar and charm monster, or
something to that effect. Examples of
lich-summoned familiars could
include the imp, necrophidius,
nightmare, or undead animals with
additional powers, like a skeletal bat
with supernatural vision and hearing
(in addition to being magically able to
fly in complete silence).

In any event, a lich and its familiar exchange the same benefits enjoyed in
all such bonds (see the wizard spell
find familiar), with possible
enhancements. The range of the lich
familiar's empathic link to its master
can be equal to the lich's Intelligence
score in miles, and naturally intelligent
familiars can communicate
telepathicalty with their masters.

As all liches in the Ravenloft
campaign are evil, so are their
familiars, but a familiar's lawful or
chaotic disposition can affect its
relationship with its master. A chaotic evil familiar might abandon its
master's commands and satisfy its basic instincts when out of range. A
neutral evil familiar might rebel (10%
base chance) against strongly lawful
or chaotic instructions when out of
range. A lawful evil familiar is always
loyal. A natural animal becomes
neutral evil upon becoming the
familiar of a lich.

If a lich familiar's body is reduced
to 0 hp, it immediately rolls for
System Shock at 85%. Failure
indicates that the familiar's spirit is
destroyed, and the lich must make a
second System Shock roll (at 85%) to
avoid its own destruction. If the
familiar's roll is successful, the
familiar's spirit returns to the safety of
the phylactery and can later inhabit
another animal's corpse. The lich is
deprived of speltcasting ability until it
animates a new body (same species
as before) for the familiar's spirit to
inhabit.

Regardless of whether the familiar
resides in the phylactery with its
master or is a monster summoned
after the transformation, the lich loses 1 point of Constitution permanently if
its familiar is destroyed, just like a
living wizard.